Armed Carjacking Ends With Arrest

Edward didn’t have time for this.

That’s what he told the masked man who approached him as Edward was warming up his Honda outside his Clifton Street home.

Carjacked

It was after 9 on the night after Christmas. New Haven’s streets were quiet. Most other people were off.

The man had pulled up with a screech in a car of his own. He got out, walked toward Edward, tried to get around Edward and into the Honda.

I have to go work, Edward told him. I really don’t have time for this.

A second masked man got out of the other car, too. He approached Edward from the other side. Give me what you got, the second man said.

Edward told him again: I don’t have time for this.

The second man responded by pulling a handgun out of the front pocket of his hooded sweatshirt.

Edward handed over his wallet. Then the men hopped in his Honda and drove off.

Spotted

Lt. Michael Fumiatti, the district manager for all of New Haven’s east side police districts, was working that night, too. For the third straight day he was pulling an extra shift to cover for a patrol supervisor. District managers don’t usually do that. But the police department is stretched thin; Fumiatti felt for the younger patrol supervisors who have been regularly working double shifts.

So Fumiatti was in his car when he received the radioed report of the call about Edward’s carjacking. He heard that one of the department’s public surveillance cameras had spotted the Honda. Another officer, Michael Pierne, called in that he’d seen the Honda traveling on Grand Avenue near Poplar.

Then Fumiatti saw it pop out in front of him on Chapel Street near Mill Street. Given that the occupants were believed to be armed, and thus dangerous, he decided to turn on his lights to try to stop them.

The carjacker instead sped westbound down Chapel. Fumiatti followed and called for back-up.

Often with stolen cars police won’t chase. They’ll put out a report for the car. If they get close enough, they’ll shoot a Nerf dart-style GPS-enabled ​“Starchase” device to attach to the fleeing car’s rear so it can be tracked and eventually found.

But in this case, Fumiatti worried the armed carjackers might hurt someone else. Also, the streets were largely empty, limiting the potential danger to pedestrians.

Chased

Here’s what happened next, according to a conversation with Fumiatti and to an officer’s written report:

Other officers joined the chase as the carjacker sped his way through red lights and stops signs and wound his way across Olive Street across town to Dixwell, then to the intersection of Goffe and Boulevard in Beaver Hills. The carjackers crashed the Honda there into a woman’s Mazda SUV. Then they fled on foot into backyards.

Some officers stayed on scene to help the woman, who was shaken up. (She went to the hospital with ​“non-life-threatening injuries” and was later released.) Cops found two weapons in the Honda: a .9mm handgun and a facsimile BB gun.

Meanwhile, accompanied by a police dog named Koda, Officer Pierne and Officer Justiano Nieves chased them on foot. They caught up with the driver in a backyard on Roydon Road.

The driver hid in bushes behind a shed. Nieves entered the bushes, grabbed the man, who allegedly refused to show his hands. Instead he allegedly tried to push his way away.

Seeing the officer struggling with a man believed to be armed, Pierne later wrote, he issued a command to Koda, who got on top of the man’s back. The man then agreed to surrender. Pierne ordered Koda off the man’s back; Nieves handcuffed him.

Unmasked

It turned out police knew about this man: This was the second time in the past six months that they had chased and arrested him. They’d been pursuing and arresting him for alleged gun and carjacking crimes for years, according to state records.

He was out awaiting trial on the two recent cases, as well as a violation of probation charge connected to a 2020 conviction for second-degree assault with a weapon. He’d received a nine-year sentence for that charge, to be suspended after three years.

In this new case the man, who is 21 years old, faces charges of illegal driving and gun possession and alteration, motor vehicle larceny, resisting arrest, engaging police in a pursuit.

The arrestee has yet to enter a plea. He couldn’t be reached to get his side of the story: He is being held on $350,000 bond. His recorded phone number is no longer operational. No one answered the door at his home or responded to a note left requesting comment. He did not have an attorney of record at the time this story was published.

Assistant Police Chief David Zannelli praised the officers for handling a potentially dangerous situation effectively and catching an armed carjacker. He said the incident shows how, even when short-staffed, the police are succeeding in holding people accountable for committing crimes. And he praised Fumiatti for participating with the officers he supervises. ​“He led by example,” Zannelli said. ​“And we got a good result.”